Over 128,000 Russian soldiers have been confirmed dead in Ukraine since the 2022 full-scale invasion began, according to a joint investigation by the BBC Russian Service, Mediazona and a network of volunteers.
As of early September, the team had identified 128,115 dead Russian soldiers by name. In June, July and August alone, journalists found 23,305 new obituaries of Russian servicemen.
On some days, up to 420 new notices appeared – about three times more than the daily average in 2024.
The BBC noted that published obituaries do not represent the full death toll in any given period, as casualty reports often reach families with delays and require additional verification.
The investigation found that 14% of the identified dead were prisoners recruited from penal colonies, while 29% were volunteer fighters.
The share of volunteers, many of whom signed contracts after the war began, is “rapidly growing” and now makes up the core of Russia’s offensive force in Ukraine.
About 11% of the dead were mobilized soldiers, though the real figure may be higher since many obituaries do not specify military status.
Moscow and Kyiv rarely release official casualty figures. Ukraine estimates that Russia’s overall losses – in dead and injured – during the full-scale war have surpassed one million.
On Aug. 12, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian losses were roughly three times higher than Ukraine’s, though he did not disclose Ukraine’s total.
Despite the mounting losses, Russia has managed to make creeping advances in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region by rotating in new contract soldiers.
As of Sept. 5, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia had lost 1,086,220 troops since February 2022, figures that are broadly in line with Western intelligence estimates.
Mediazona and Meduza separately estimate that at least 220,000 Russian troops have been killed since the start of the invasion, using inheritance registry data as their primary source after Russia’s state statistics agency stopped publishing national mortality figures.
The BBC and Mediazona first published their verified casualty database in February 2025, on the war’s third anniversary. Volunteers manually check each entry to avoid duplicates and ensure accuracy.